Deep Blue
by Interstate 405
Summary: And so it is said that Curiosity killed the cat. ShizNat


**AN : **Thanks so much to my beta, Darkfeenix for helping me get this out. It took much longer then I expected but hopefully it'll be worth it. I hope you enjoy, and the title? I seem to have a thing with blue, but I guess I picked this title as a sort of ironic twist, a story with "blue" in it made of fluff and sap, and another one with...for lack of beter term, quite the opposite...

* * *

Cracking my eyes open I find myself staring at the darkness above me, the rolling skies covered and blotted by light gray clouds, and while my mind begins to take in my surroundings, a numb silent part of me realizes something that forces my heart to skip a beat.

_I can't move._

It comes too fast for me to notice, the stinging urgent feeling of panic rising through my whole spine before leaving tingles in my fingers, and all I can feel is the fistfuls of sand in my clenched fists slipping through the cracks of my fingers and the quick rapid breathes escaping through my chapped lips.

_I'm going to die if I don't calm down._

The thought doesn't seem to help, my state of mind slowly teetering to an even more dangerous level of panic and fear.

It is only minutes later after I gather my bearings that I realize the cold water licking at my lower body.

_Water…_

And just like that do I begin feel the bits and pieces imbedded in my mind start to mend in to something greater, into something more then a chipped off shard of glass.

* * *

It was raining, hard. The blotches of rain pelted in to my body and helmet, yet I wasn't fazed at all, the only extra movement being the gripping of my hands on the handles of my motorcycle a bit harder. I was distracted and bothered, all these feelings pouring out much too fast.

Thoughts of Shizuru, that freak festival, and the murders, _oh god the bodies,_ quickly began to pollute my mind and just like dropping a drop of ink on a clean of white paper, did my thoughts begin to devour my concentration.

As the road ahead began to curve, I was forced to dully note that I had never crossed this road ever since that…

_...that time._

Without paying the rain and slippery road any heed, I pressed harder against the bike, the cool metal easing my feverish body as I sped forward. This familiar scene was etched in to the back of my mind, since that one time when Mai forced me to watch a drama where the main characters boyfriend died skidding off his motorcycle in the rain and in to an abandoned oil factory.

So maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised when my bike slipped across the road and flew me carelessly off, of the same cliff that had haunted my dreams, like some sort of rag doll.

Maybe if I wasn't so surprised I'd have enough time to realize the irony of the whole situation. But no matter how many times I am going to fall off this cliff, I know for sure I'll never get used to it.

You'd think spending the last few moments of your life, flying off a cliff and falling headfirst in to water would be anything short of exhilarating, or maybe even terrifying. But as my body tumbles down to its probable death, I find myself dismayed by the numb feeling of my limbs brushing against each other while my mind feels satiated, and drugged in to a pleasant state.

I can feel the bile rising in my throat as the sound of fast falling wind whistles loudly in my ear. Strands of dark cobalt blue hair whip wildly in my face, the long locks fighting swirling with the blue hues of the sky and the water, vainly fighting against the force of gravity. A sudden feel of importance to my thoughts randomly tugs at my heart and automatically my thoughts reach out the things in my soul that haunt me the most. My hands start to shake and holding them tight against each other, I push them forcefully on my chest, right above my heart.

_The only part of me that I couldn't give you._

_You'd kill for this._

_I know it._

I don't know if it's a spontaneous natural instinct urge to live, or a mixed sort of relief that I've stopped falling that bleaches my mind. But when my body plunges in to the water suddenly all my thoughts seem to grow louder, bigger, and they buzz uncomfortably in my head.

Opening my mouth, I blow out all the excess air which quickly replaces itself with water, and watch as the bubbles float to the surface. The water swishes softly inside my mouth, rapidly soaking my teeth and tongue, while slowly reminding me of the stinging aftertaste of bile.

_It's dark._

Even when I know my death should probably be slow and torturous, the equivalent all those people at First Distract who were slaughtered for my sake, equivalent to all those times I stood by you, close enough to see, to hear, but never enough to touch, _I_ can't help but pray to the nonexistent God to ease the white hot searing pain ripping at my lungs.

Without thinking, my limbs start thrashing around, and I know I shouldn't but my arms and legs begin to propel me as fast as they can to the surface. And when my throat constricts even tighter I'm forced to think of the one question that's been nagging me for far too long.

_Do I really want to go back up?_

Suddenly my body is at ease again, feeling lax and limp, my arms and legs promptly stop their frantic fit and I feel almost peaceful as I find myself sinking even deeper. I hope this feeling of weightlessness was what the dead corpses in the First District felt before cold metal pierced through their skin; this feeling is much more pleasant.

_I am selfish._

And as the darkness floods my mind and eyes, a sudden wave of exhaustion brushes over me and oh god it's hard, so hard to keep my eyes open and by now I don't even know or care if my eyes are closing in defeat or desperation.

_So very selfish._

_

* * *

_

Blinking, I take the time now to appreciate the irony of this familiar situation.

_I flew off a cliff in to my watery grave and managed to survive._

_Twice._

By now, the beginnings of morning start to show, the dark blue swirls of the sky turning in to a lighter hue. Looking down, I stared at my legs.

I breathe in a few deep breathes of air before closing my eyes and straining to move them.

The pain was immediate.

A static shock ran across my legs from the tips of my toes to my thigh and yet the only reaction I could think to do is scowl and grit my teeth harder against each other, desperately trying my best to move away from the water before I catch pneumonia or something worse.

It isn't long until my legs finally cooperate, at this rate too numb to send my body stabbing waves of pain. I don't know whether to be grateful that the pain stopped, or scared.

Grabbing fistfuls of sand, I began the painstaking process of dragging my aching body across the rough sand, hopefully to somewhere I can get some help.

For someone stranded on the beach with useless legs, I found myself eerily calm. Maybe my body finally agreed to sign the contract of death when my mind decided it wanted to live.

_What great timing._

_

* * *

_

Sighing, Fujino Shizuru clicked and turned open the knob to her door and entered, gently pushing the door shut as she slid her jacket off and headed for the kitchen. Her face appeared calm, her actions were controlled, and her movement was swift, but her heart and mind were rattled beyond belief.

Too nauseous to make tea as she had promptly planned to do, she pulled out her chair, her hands shaking for a moment before she forced herself to sit down.

The apartment was deathly quiet.

She sat there, her hands buried under her soft brown hair while her frame involuntarily shook, sending tremors down her legs. There was no other sound other then the rapid breathes leaving her lips and the occasional shaking of her legs, and she sat like that for a few minutes before dropping her hands and revealing lines of fatigue.

_Natsuki knows._

_She saw._

_The bodies. All of them._

_She saw._

Staring blankly at the two hands laid out in front of her, the girl bit her lip. Something she had not done for years, the one act which showed nervousness, fear, and anxiety.

She was nervous.

She was scared.

And she was with no doubt, anxious.

The face she wore showed something she had taught herself not to ever show.

Weakness.

She knows somewhere in the deep cracks of her twisted demonic mind that she would have probably stayed there for perhaps eternity, staring at her hands, _gods_ the same hands that had clasped that weapon with such poisonous intent, such determination, if it weren't for the soft melodic tune playing out of her cellular phone

Steeling herself, she breathed in deep, pulling the air around her lungs before readying herself and exhaling, she flipped the top half of the phone over.

"Hello, Fujino Shizuru speaking."

And just like that was she the ever so perfect woman of grace molded from the hands of the wealthy.

Her face was still as the person on the other line talked to her in fast sentences, he sounded rushed, scared, nervous, and she sensed maybe just a bit of pity for the girl he was speaking with, the one with the bated breath and perfect face.

"Is there any way we can track her and the information she took?"

Shizuru looked ahead, staring at her perfect white walls in her kitchen wishing her mind was as perfect as that. Blank. Clean. Pure. Everything she was not.

"…I see. Thank you for the information. Yes, I'd like you to continue searching for her; I'd also feel at ease if you possibly brought more men with you, she is not an ordinary girl. And under no circumstances will you injure her. I just want the information back."

The man on the other line was silent and Shizuru played with the words in her head wondering what had caused him to hesitate. He stayed silent for a bit longer before diving back in protocol.

"Yes, you should have my fax number, if you could please fax me over the report? I would like to look it over. Alright, thank you for your cooperation."

Flipping her phone shut, Shizuru stood up and walked briskly to her room, feeling uncomfortable with the way her brain told her to walk faster then her usual slow pace, and that this was nothing to be less then fast about.

She stood over her fax machine, eyeing the sleek black machine, one of the money gifts her father had bought for her in congratulations to her rise of power in the company.

And as her dark burgundy eyes scanned the fax machine in an odd mix of impatience and the itching feeling in her heart that wanted the machine to break on the spot, the fax machine grumbled a bit before the tip of a white sheet of paper began to protrude out of the left side. She wrung her hands a bit staring at the white piece of paper, silently contemplating on if she _really_ wanted to read the contents. Smiling she told herself that she had never been this nervous since…

…she had never _been_ this nervous.

However her thoughts came to an abrupt halt and the precautions her head was egging her to take seemed to be nonexistent as her body jumped one step ahead.

It was too late to stop her eyes from scanning the headline and working its way from the bottom, she realized it was much, much too late. And the first few words were enough to confirm her fears and she, in a quick tug of desperation, she folded the paper in hopes that if she herself could not see the words, they simply did not _exist._

**Item/s that was stolen: **Records of the deaths and photographic evidence of the corpses left behind in the corporate buildings of the First District.

**Time and synopsis of the robbery/theft:** At around 3:42 PM the alarms were sent off, and the remaining guards ran in the building to find the unconscious forms of several other security guards. Files, cabinets, and archives seemed to have been thoroughly inspected by said intruder.

**Death toll:**None.

**Injured: **(6) Two with minor wounds. Four who were found unconscious in front of the gates but none the less managed to stay unharmed.

**Any evidence or primary information about intruder:** Cameras caught someone in a black and red leather suit run pass camera #72 and #42 at both the 2nd floor and 5th. Suspect seems to be a girl, evident by the suspect's body and movements. The infiltrator swiftly entered the building and managed to leave unscathed and with the desired information in under thirty minutes. The suspect was recognized by someone at the desk, Ms.Kanazawa as she hid beneath the desk when the infiltrator snuck through and immediately took out the guards with what seems to be two small pistols (validity is unknown), as a guest or friend of the daughter of the corporation's boss, Fujino Shizuru.

**Prime suspect:**Kuga Natsuki.

* * *

She'd long ago given up trying to move.

Her legs were cramped and they still hummed with tremors of pain every once in a while, and she did not particularly enjoy the sting of pain that arose whenever she tried to move them. Closing her eyes shut against the blinding sun, she splayed her limbs across the gold rough sand.

_How many hours had passed?_

Weakly lifting her hand, she dug through her dried out jacket and pulled open a strap on the inside of the vest. Fumbling with her fingers, she grunted as she slowly pulled out the small zip lock bag.

Raising her arm, she opened her eyes and stared at the see-through zip lock bag, the white miraculously dry folded pieces of paper glaring back at her tired emerald green eyes.

It was then did the dawning realization of her actions last night sink in.

_I stole something from Shizuru._

Her arm fell back to her side in an ungraceful heap, and she felt the bag leave her fingers as it landed on the sand without a sound.

_But now I know._

…_and I wish I didn't._

It was her undying quench for knowledge regarding the First District, and the desperate clawing in her heart that told her to find the validity of her mother's actions that drove her to such limits.

She licked her chapped lips and grimaced at the dry rough feeling of her tongue scraping against her bottom lip.

It wasn't like this was the first time she had infiltrated a building for information, but it _was_ the first time she had snuck in to her friends company only to discover how many people died at her hands.

When Natsuki found out that the First District had perished, she didn't think that meant _annihilated_.

Yamada had told her that the information she sought was in one of the vast archives in the same building she had entered more then once with Shizuru, but she could never prepare herself for what she found.

The decision to infiltrate the building wasn't easy.

Far from it.

She spent days and hours contemplating her choices and weighing the options in her mind, each decision having a smoldering aftereffect on her mind and soul. 'Should I betray the trust of my friend and go as far as to break in to her company building for some mere records, or should I be the honest friend and awful daughter?'

Turning her head, she stared again at the clear zip lock bag, wondering if it would disappear if maybe she glared at it hard enough.

She really didn't expect it to.

But it did.

"W-What the fu-…." the sound of her husky, tired voice surprised her, but not as much as the pair of shoes that suddenly appeared in front of her face.

_I know those shoes._

Craning her head upwards she wished strongly that it wasn't who she thought it was. But all she saw was a black silhouette, the angry glare of the sun obscuring her view.

"…I'm sorry Natsuki"

It took only a millisecond for her to recognize that tone of voice, that all too familiar accent, and she acted on impulse when she felt the shadow move and heard the shoes sink in to the sand, hesitating a bit before making way for their quiet depart.

But she didn't linger on that too much.

She had forgotten that her legs were cramped, that her arms had hurt whenever she bent them, she had forgotten them all when she turned around and flung herself to the back of the figure she knew so well.

Her arm clung on to a leg and she gripped hard at the pale skin, grimly promising herself to never let go.

"…you….you're a monster."

She didn't understand why she said that.

Apparently neither did the figure above her.

The two of them stayed there, under the suns blazing kiss and the millions of grains of sand scattered around them. Natsuki dug her nails in to the others leg without knowing, and shut her eyes when she felt the welling of tears bubble to the surface.

_Stop crying, compose yourself, compose yourself, compose yourself!_

The chant in her mind did nothing to help her, and she didn't realize when the person above her bent over and stared at her face.

With her face a few millimeters from her own, Shizuru stared in to the eyes of the girl she had sacrificed much too many for, her hands cupping a side of the crying girls face.

Her fingers were cool.

Even after the hands had slapped her face, it was the only coherent thought Natsuki could think of.

_Shizuru, your hands are so cold._

The right side of her face still stung, and she stared back the pair of wine colored eyes with only one eye, the other one shut tight to ease the pain. She inhaled sharply as she raised her arm again, but this time it wasn't to pick out anything from inside her jacket.

_Let me warm them for you._

Natsuki clutched Shizuru's hand, and closed her eyes.

If her eyes weren't shut tight, she would have seen the crumbling of that beautiful mask and the streak of tears running down her face, but all she knew was that no words were spoken, no words were needed.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice questioned her sanity, diligently asking her if she was undergoing the last moments of her life in an unstoppable haze of confusion.

But she sure didn't feel crazy. Or insane for that matter.

In fact, laying down here clutching the cold hand of her best friend, murderer, ex-HiME, and still quiet love, she thinks she had never felt any better.

She opened her eyes and saw the tears on her face, and attempted to raise her other arm to wipe them away, but Shizuru's arm held it down and her face was soft, and she found herself wondering if she was staring at the eyes of a killer.

It couldn't be.

_I feel like I'm dying._

It was true, her heartbeat felt slow and she felt the blood rising to her head, but she didn't know why. Maybe it was the all the hours under the sun, the tiredness inside of her growing by the minute, or maybe it was the effects of surviving from a fall she wasn't supposed to. She didn't know.

She heard the distant sound footsteps pounding in to the sand and blinking, she saw the soles of dark leather shoes approaching them both. The calm melancholy expression on Shizuru's face told her that they were most likely her guards or medical assistance. But she didn't linger on that too much.

Her grip on Shizuru's cool fingers were slipping, and with it her consciousness.

Shizuru must have realized, for her grip on Natsuki's hand grew tighter and staring at her eyes, the beautiful eyes of a killer she knows this might be her last few moments of her life, but Natsuki feels everything is going to be okay.

Because she _knows_ she has never felt any happier in her life.

* * *

**AN :** So there you have it, a twist of my own that I had came up with one day pondering the possible aftermath of the HiME festival. I really hope you enjoyed it, and reviews, tips, and constuctive criticism never hurt anyone, so feel free! XD. 


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